


You're holding my heart, whatcha say?

by Florchis



Category: Boy Meets World
Genre: Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Long Live Feedback Comment Project, Love Confessions, Multi, Polyamory, Season 4 AU, Shawn POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21942943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Florchis/pseuds/Florchis
Summary: When Shawn told Cory, "I think the three of us can be very happy together", he was joking. But that doesn't mean it's not true.
Relationships: Shawn Hunter/Topanga Lawrence-Matthews/Cory Matthews
Comments: 22
Kudos: 102





	You're holding my heart, whatcha say?

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for language. My first story for this fandom, hope you enjoy!

_the universe is daring me to fall in love with you_

_and, darling, I’ve never met a dare I didn’t take_

_and I’ve always been a little bit terrified of the song in my heart_

_the way it overpowers everything else, a pounding war drum_

_but with you, the fear fades away into something softer_

_and after all these years,[I’m finally alright with believing](https://fireandsteelofangels.tumblr.com/post/169624914882/the-universe-is-daring-me-to-fall-in-love-with-you) _

* * *

It starts simply enough.

_I think the three of us can be very happy together._

* * *

It is late and both Topanga and Cory have dozed off while they were all talking quietly in the Matthews' backyard double chair, but Shawn is in no hurry to leave. The night is quiet, a soft wind curling around his ankles, and for all that he is known for being restless, Shawn Hunter wants to stay. 

Cory opens his eyes and the first thing he does is press himself tighter against Topanga, his nose nuzzling against her neck. If they were anywhere else, anytime else, Shawn would roll his eyes, but there is no one here he needs to pretend for, so he just smiles. Smiles and longs. 

Cory is tickling his thigh with his socked feet. Shawn is not sure if he realizes he is doing it or not, but he places a hand on Cory’s ankle, uses the opportunity to remind him that he is here, in case Cory- always so wrapped up in Topanga- has forgotten.

“Hey, Cor,” he begins, and his voice is hoarse. Maybe because of the cold wind. Maybe because he has been silent for so long. There is _no way_ it’s because of emotion. “You know that I’d have cut my hair too. If that would have made you feel better, that is.”

Cory doesn’t look at him, and that is good because Shawn feels like crying. Instead, Cory wiggles once again his toes against the side of Shawn’s thigh, and the desire to stroke the spine of his foot tightens the knot in Shawn’s lungs. 

“Go to sleep, Shawnie,” Cory whispers, his arm snug against Topanga’s waist, his eyes closed, and to not break tradition, Shawn doesn’t follow his advice. 

He can’t stay forever. He doesn’t have a curfew or someone to enforce it for that matter, but _they_ do, and after a week charged with high emotions they also deserve a moment of rest together. 

He can't stay forever. He knows. But he can stay for a little while longer.

* * *

Though he was the one to playfully suggest that he could love Topanga and in a certain way he could also love Cory, he wasn’t serious. He doesn’t realize it is indeed a serious thought worthy of serious consideration until one afternoon when he is playing hoops with Cory while Topanga is reading aloud from their history textbook.

(She is under the- false- impression that they _might_ be able to learn something out of sheer forced contact; the belief is enough to fuel her, and they’d let her do it just to not pop her bubble, but they also both like the sound of her voice, so it’s a win-win situation.)

Cory is crowding him trying to take the ball out of his hands, the heaving of his chest very real against Shawn’s shoulder blades. He raises his head to trick Cory into a feint but a sunbeam strikes Topanga’s golden hair just right and he freezes. He can't imagine a moment more perfect than this, and for a second there is nothing he could wish for, except maybe for time to stop.

But time never stops and Cory steals him the basketball and Topanga stops her reading to cheer on him and Shawn's heart is so full that he can not breathe.

* * *

Once he has the suspicion that what he shares with them might be, could be love, he can’t let it go. 

It’s funny because it took looking at Topanga in a different way for him to be able to look at Cory in a different way, too. Maybe it’s a matter of opening boxes and taking himself out of them. For as long as he remembers, Cory was his best friend and Topanga was his best friend’s girl. If a favorable haircut and some well-applied lipgloss were enough to kick his house of beliefs down to the ground, it’s only fair that his concept of Cory would shift accordingly too.

It’s probably for the best. The freakout is way smaller if he can look at Cory with different eyes in the context of Cory-and-Topanga instead of rethinking his whole concept of himself.

He tries his darndest to not give away his inner turmoil when he is with them. Shawn Hunter knows how to play his cards close to the chest, and if Cory catches him silent for too long or Topanga looks at him weird when he does something out of the ordinary sweet for her, he plays the dumb card.

What, they are his friends, can’t he be nice to them and enjoy their company and be grateful for them?

_What?_

* * *

He sneaks inside Jon’s apartment with practiced ease and waits for him sitting on the kitchen counter, passing an orange back and forth in his hands so he won’t be betrayed by his trembling fingers.

When he opens the door, Jon doesn’t even look surprised. Eli peers inside and gives Shawn a salute before turning around and heading home. Jon heaves a heavy sigh while he leaves his helmet and his satchel on top of the coffee table, and his face is a mix of annoyance and joy. 

“Shouldn’t you be in school, Shawn?”

Shawn ignores the question and jumps down the counter to point to the side of his helmet.

“I made you coffee.”

He sits down on the couch and Shawn leans against the fridge, uncomfortable in his own limbs. Jons smells the cup suspiciously and raises his eyebrows when the decent smell hits his nostrils.

“Whatever you are going to ask of me is going to cost me an arm and a leg, isn’t it?”

Shawn can’t even resent the assumption: he did put a lot of effort into this set-up, and that _is_ suspicious, but this time is out of nerves and not out of guilt. This is a big deal and saying it out loud might make it feel more real than he is ready to handle. He slumps down on the couch, a puppet with the strings cut, and Jon considers him while he takes tiny sips.

“I have a question.”

There is tenderness in Jon’s features, and Shawn rejected that care for a long time but there are reasons why he came here instead of talking with his dad. 

“Shoot me, Hunter."

He looks around, looking for the words. Not for the first time, he wishes he were able to pull people inside his head, showing them what is going on inside of this dumb brain of his, instead of needing to articulate each feeling in a clear- and also proper- way. How do you tell your once-guardian that you think you might be in love with your best friend _and_ his girlfriend and that you are not panicking nearly as enough as you should?

Jon is not pressing him but Shawn is getting overwhelmed nevertheless and looks at the door for an escape route, and instead finds there the approach he was lacking. 

"Did you and Eli ever just-?"

He makes a gesture with his hand, half rude and half inconsistent and his stomach reaches a boil watching a river of emotions passing Jon’s face. 

"No.” His voice is tempered, and Shawn wonders how is he managing that when his eyes look a little crazed. “But you are young, and it's okay if you feel the need to experiment, Shawn."

He could deny everything, laugh it off, call it a joke. But he came here as much for support as he came for honesty, and he can honor that. He stands up, paces the small apartment in nervous strides. Jon places the mug back on the coffee table and watches him with an unreadable expression. 

"But how do I know? Knowing I like girls was easy. Songs and movies and adults and even damn books tell me to like girls! How do I know if I like like a guy, too?"

Silence follows his outburst, and Shawn doesn’t dare look at Jon, focuses instead on stopping hyperventilating. When the hand comes to stop on his shoulder, he almost jumps two feet in the air, but when he sees Jon’s expression the panic attack slowly ebbs away from him. 

"I am sorry I don’t have a better answer for you, but you will have to trust your gut, buddy."

* * *

In the end, the answer is easy. It wouldn’t be if it were about any other guy but Cory, but _it is_ about Cory, so _it is_ easy.

Cory has been for a long time the most important person in his life. How can that not be love?

* * *

He does not ask Jon about loving more than one person at once. He adores the guy, but there is only so much you can spring on a father figure that has already freaked out on you once.

Besides, Shawn has been desperate enough for love for all of his seventeen years on this Earth to not look a gift horse in the mouth. 

* * *

As much as he pretends that nothing is going on, things start to get… awkward.

Flirting is in his blood, both as his way to connect with the universe and as his way to shield himself from it. But with Cory and Topanga he has never over-thought a lingering hand, a casual compliment, a fond smile. Loving them is one of the handful of things Shawn really knows how to do, and now that he is toying with the idea of more, well. As someone who never had anything of his own, he doesn’t know how to not be greedy.

It was bound to get fucked up. 

This bundle of unresolved feelings that have nested inside his brain is turning him quiet-edging-on-broody, and it’s creeping Cory out and pissing Topanga off, and he can not let, _won’t let_ this to ruin him as a friend.

* * *

What he finds out with time is this: knowing doesn’t change anything. Except, well, for the way he looks at things and obsesses over things, and worries about things. And messes up things, of course. But that is the Shawn way, to mess things up, so that is not something new.

But the relationship they have doesn’t change. The time they spend together. How much they study together and eat together and play together and nap together and dream together and laugh together. The way he isn’t jealous but giddy when Cory and Topanga ditch him to make out. The way he looks at Topanga like she hang up the moon and at Cory like he is the best person to grace this Earth. (Those are not figures of speech: he doesn’t know much about the moon, so he can believe whatever, and he is very sure of the factual veracity of Cory’s goodness.) All those things remain the same. 

Knowing doesn’t change anything, because he doesn’t _need_ them to love him back, not in any different way of how he knows they do love him now. He has enough with having them and knowing they have each other. Needing too much has always fucked things up for Shawn, and he won’t let his faulty nature ruin this for him.

He can pretend he doesn’t need more, but he can’t pretend that he doesn’t _yearn._

* * *

It breaks simply enough.

"Darling, can you pass me the butter?”

Shawn raises his head from the semi-nap he was talking between his arms in the Matthews' kitchen table. Topanga, instead, doesn't raise her head from the newspaper, doesn’t reply, doesn’t give any sign that she heard him, and Shawn hesitates. Cory, busy with the pancake mix, is not looking at either of them. He could get up, open the fridge, pass him the butter. It shouldn’t matter that the request wasn’t directed at him and it shouldn’t be a big deal. But for some reason, it is.

“Topanga, Cory wants-”

“Uh uh.” Topanga shakes a finger in the air, uses another one to flip pages, doesn’t even look at him. “Honey is me. _Darling_ is all _you_ , Hunter.”

Shawn looks between them, and Cory is beaming at him. Apparently she is not wrong. 

He doesn’t say a word, gets up, opens the fridge, passes Corry the butter. 

The pancakes taste like hope.

* * *

The thing is that he can ask Jon for advice. Or Mr. Feeny, or whoever. But, when everything is said and done, there has always been the three of them. Shawn has always gone to them, for the good and the bad, and he doesn’t want this to be an exception.

* * *

It ends simply enough: with his black book. 

It was a careful choice, which is saying something for Shawn Hunter, who runs with his mouth all the time and usually regrets what he is saying before he is even done saying it. That is to show how high the stakes are on this. He can’t, under no circumstances, fuck this up. He chooses the black book because it’s topic-appropriate, and also because it gives him an easy out, a ha-ha-joke-is-on-you chance in case things start going south.

But mostly he brought it because he is _the kind of guy who has a book like that_ , and if this is going to work in any way he needs them to remember and accept that. 

They are hanging out at the tree-house, which is already a bit too small for the three of them. Cory and Topanga could have chosen to kick him out, as it is their god-given old-married-couple right, but instead, they are all squeezed together, Topanga playing handsy with Cory’s fingers while Cory and Shawn roll a baseball back and forth between them, all movements measured and languid. 

It is not much- in fact, it’s kind of dull, but it’s also perfect, and that prompts Shawn to take the book out of the pocket of his jacket.

“There is something I’d like to run by you, guys.”

Cory raises his eyebrows in that way that always makes him look funny, and Topanga stops the movements of her hand, listening to him intently. 

“I had been wanting to add a couple of names to the book.”

 _“Names?_ As in plural? Shawn, you dog!” Cory tries to punch him in the shoulder, but he has to stretch his arm a bit too far and loses his balance. Both Shawn and Topanga rush to help him sit back straight again. “Who are they?” 

“Yeah, um. Yeah.” It is both easier and harder to talk about this with his fingers still grasping Cory’s arm and Topanga, still completely silent, looking at him from much much closer. “When I said a couple of names… I also meant a _couple_ ’s names.”

He waits for the three beats it takes them to exchange a charged look, one of those that can hold inside a thousand words; he has to pinch himself with the hand that is not holding Cory to keep himself from saying something stupid out of pure anxiety. Topanga nods when the look finally breaks, and Shawn is pinching himself so hard he will find a bruise on his leg when he undresses.

“Do you think they will be okay with that, Shawn?” Topanga’s voice is measured and clear, and she is talking because Cory would make an ass out of himself, they all know it, and Shawn’s heart gives a painful pang at the beautiful equilibrium between them.

This is the moment, the point of no return that could make or change all their lives. Shawn wishes he could be a coward, don’t dare ask for what he wants and don’t put at risk this friendship they all hold dear, but he is who he is, and wanting to be loved will forever doom him. 

“You tell me.” He lowers his eyes because he doesn’t want to see rejection, pity or disgust in their eyes. 

Cory is the first to react, grabbing the hand Shawn still has on his arm and shifting uncomfortably to face him fully.

“Shawnie.” His voice is sure, firm, and somehow that makes Shawn over conscious of his heart beating out of control. “What are you trying to say?”

He swallows: if there is a last opportunity to backtrack, this is it. But they are not running for the hills (yet), and Cory is calm and Topanga’s eyes are focused and clear, and if there is a moment to make one last leap of faith, this is also it. 

“I’m saying that I wasn’t joking, um, when Topanga went to that fake-french-creep guy.” Topanga licks her lips while she nods in recognition, and Shawn loses the thread of his thoughts for a second. “That we could be happy, together. The three of us. If you’d give me a chance.”

He is asking for too much, he knows. He is asking for too much and they have too much too loose and not a lot to gain, but nothing ventured nothing gained, they say, and he has way too much ahead of him to gain to not try everything at least once.

Shawn stops breathing while Cory moves his eyes away from him to look at his girlfriend. Things could go from “good” to “horribly bad” with a lot of sucky possibilities in between, and know that the decision is out of his hands he feels a little unsettled.

Only when Topanga places her hand on top of his he remembers that he has not let go of Cory’s arm. 

“Shawn.” The way she says his name is leveled but also soft. Not all hope is lost quite yet. “You know we love you.”

It is neither a yes nor a no, but it is a start, and he can work with that. If you need someone to take a mile out of an inch, Shawn Hunter is your guy. 

“Yeah.” He smiles, and Topanga squeezes his hand. Cory smiles back when Shawn starts rolling the ball between them again. “I do know.” 

* * *

It begins simply enough.

He loves them, and they love him.

**Author's Note:**

> This could have gone south in a lot of ways in a lot of places- like Shawn having a gay panic, a poly panic, and unloved panic, etc.- and maybe it would have been more IC if more things had gone wrong, but I wanted to write a Soft story for them, and here we are.
> 
> I'm planning two or more stories for these three, see if that pays out. You can find me here or on tumblr under the same handle if you want to babble about these three!  
> **  
> This story is part of LLF Comment Project, whose goal is to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites:
> 
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